The Commish in the Yahoo keeper league can load all of the keepers onto the teams pre-draft. That way you don't have the chance of a mishap, where someone doesn't show and autodrafts other keepers, or where someone screws up because they are a retard. You know who you are.

We typically don't draft players not in the data base, it's WW priority based when they're added. However, we do allow trades in our league to get a better Waiver. You could make a pre-draft trade with the guy that will have the #1 Waiver, agree to give him your X round pick (he instructs you who to draft) for his waiver. The commish can change it in-season.

I play in both CBS and Yahoo leagues and as it's been mentioned above, CBS is more flexible but Yahoo is easier to navigate. I like both, but prefer the Yahoo leagues.

wrveres wrote:I am so upset right now.This may be my last season on Yahoo, simply because of their repeated mismanagement of their player database.

grrr

Don't be upset. Talk to me

Can you clarify what exactly you're frustrated about? Is it just the timing of when prospects enter our player pool, or more than that?

I am upset that you don't have any sort of guidelines when it comes to adding players to your database. Through out the history of your game, you have added players once they make their major league debut. But for some odd reason, you guys decided to take select handful of minor leaguers this season and add them.Why? what was wrong with the waivers process? Who decides which players gets put into your database? Why are there a few select minor leaguers, but not others?What makes a guy that has 41 IP in A ball (Lincecum) available when the Yahoo season opens, but say somebody like Steve Finley, Belliard or lots of other vetrans for that matter, why do they have be added, and clear waivers?

There is zero method to the madness, best I can tell. And to be honest it is very frustrating.

I use both in different leagues. I agree that Yahoo has, in general, a more intuitive UI, but Stattracker is AN AWFUL PIG. Sportsline's real-time stats app is MUCH better. Sportsline also has better reporting functionality.

Thanks. I'll take your feedback and share it with folks here. I'll do what I can to answer your questions below, though some of them are perfectly valid points.

wrveres wrote:I am upset that you don't have any sort of guidelines when it comes to adding players to your database. Through out the history of your game, you have added players once they make their major league debut. But for some odd reason, you guys decided to take select handful of minor leaguers this season and add them.Why?

I believe the philosophy, for better or worse, has always been that adding every minor leaguer under the sun would do more harm than good by clogging up the player pool with lots of players that don't matter. At the same time, we want to have any player in the player pool that DOES matter. So the minor leaguers you notice are probably guys that it was deemed were going to be of broad interest. This is a consistent methodology, but it is subjective, for sure.

what was wrong with the waivers process?

So I think I know what you mean here, but this could be a bit misleading. Do you just mean that some prospects never hit waivers because they are available in the draft? That's true, but by my way of looking at things (which you are free to disagree with), if a guy is available prior to the draft, everyone is on equal footing; they need to decide how they value the prospect relative to other players. If a guy is added after the draft, he goes on waivers as he always has, which again is intended to give people a predictable shot at him.

Who decides which players gets put into your database?

Not me People on the product side of our house approve players for entry into the player pool. This is often based on data from our data provider. However, they do strive to make sure all relevant players are in the player pool. I think you perceived a rule in the past that we didn't add players until they actually played; I don't think that was ever a specific goal. If anything, what you're seeing as an inconsistency may be that we're trying harder to get guys into the game as soon as it becomes clear they are going to matter. Often based on feedback here. Cole Hamels last year was a glaring example; half the world was dying to pick him up before he pitched a game, so we made a point of forcing him into the game before our data provider had given us reason to do so. We've done that a few times this year as well (Phil Hughes comes to mind), often based on feedback from the Cafe. Given that the waiver process is in place, we try to get guys into the pool as soon as possible if we know they're going to be desired. I hear the feedback that we're slow on the draw with some guys; as I said, I think there is a goal not to clog up the player pool with guys that don't matter, but I can definitely give the feedback that we could loosen up a bit. I've actually already given that feedback in the context of better supporting keeper leagues.

Why are there a few select minor leaguers, but not others?

As mentioned, it is because these are guys that we concluded were going to be of interest. If we know managers are going to want to add someone, we're not likely to intentionally delay putting them into the pool.

What makes a guy that has 41 IP in A ball (Lincecum) available when the Yahoo season opens, but say somebody like Steve Finley, Belliard or lots of other vetrans for that matter, why do they have be added, and clear waivers?

re: Lincecum. He's in the pool because he was a very visible prospect that was deemed to be of wide interest, particularly given that we're located on the west coast. re: the veteran guys, that actually concerns me more than the prospects in this discussion, because I can sort of understand if a particular prospect slipped below our radar (though I'd love to improve that), but if a veteran guy falls through the cracks, that's just flat out a mistake. I can point out these cases to see if we can figure out why they happened.

So we do appreciate the feedback. I guess I still don't entirely understand why it is so frustrating for you that prospect A is treated slightly different than prospect B, if each guy gets fair treatment for all managers in your league, but I believe it does frustrate you, so I'm trying to understand that better. I don't know if there is a problem I'm missing, or if you're just being jarred by mismatched expectations since you believed we tried to only put players into the game when they actually had pitched (when in fact the driving factor is that they are going to be desired by managers).

mkultra wrote:I use both in different leagues. I agree that Yahoo has, in general, a more intuitive UI, but Stattracker is AN AWFUL PIG. Sportsline's real-time stats app is MUCH better. Sportsline also has better reporting functionality.

Not to mention that CBS has a much larger database, which make it much friendlier to keeper leagues. Also you can pretty much transfer any combination of stats you want to excel at the click of a button. There are lots of pluses to CBS over Yahoo.But it'll cost ya.

I guess when you get right down to it though, we spend six months out of the year playing this game, might as well pony up a little coin.

Regarding player availability vs. "too many irrelevant players": Sportsline has everyone under the sun in their database, including folks in the minors who will never see a major league ballpark this year- I've been using them for 5 years and have NEVER had a problem with it. That's what search is for.

Bloody Sox wrote:There are two huge things that CBS could add/change to entice Yahooers:

1. When you go to add a free agent, it takes you to your add/drop page. Makes sense, but you can't compare the player you want to add to the players on your current roster. You have to go back to the new player's personal page and do a 1-to-1 comparison with any player from the entire database. This would be a simple fix.

While it's not as easy as clicking and pulling up your own roster, you CAN, in fact, compare to multiple players - any you want, including your own - by using the "control" key to make multiple selections for comparison.

Possible trades can be analyzed vs your roster with just a click, but I agree it would be nice to have that as a one-click roster impact for free agents as well. Overall, I think CBS does a good job of improving every year, so I don't doubt we see that next year.